This is an activity taken from Peter Elbow’s classic book, Writing without Teachers (1973), which I have used both to help students become more effective peer reviewers, and to develop better skills at academic reading generally. The idea is to adopt first, a credulous readerly persona, who is inclined to believe every claim in a text; and then to read the same paper as a doubter, who is inclined to question every claim. At its most basic level, you might just ask students to reflect on their different experiences as readers in each mode, and to consider how they usually orient themselves to texts of various kinds. What do they get from the text when they approach it by aligning themselves reflexively with the writer’s position? What does the text offer them when they engage with it skeptically? Etc.
You can also identify different modes of questioning and commenting that stem from each position — particularly when the context is peer feedback. Reading credulously can often push students away from the habit of seeing peer review as “criticizing” each other’s work, and more as a process of trying to understand and support a writer’s intentions. And reading doubtfully often helps students tune in to the way writers are supporting (or failing to support) their position, what counts as evidence in a particular context, and how they are imagining their audience.
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